


the aftermath is an afterthought

by weatheredlaw



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Blood, Body Horror, Character Study, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 20:18:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15420777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatheredlaw/pseuds/weatheredlaw
Summary: There are creatures that learn your name, and then they take your soul. After the end of one life, Locus tries to start living another.





	the aftermath is an afterthought

**Author's Note:**

> locus character study.

Locus is good at a lot of things. He has exceptional skills that make him an exceptional man. He knows this. He has _lived_ this.

So it is confusing to him that he cannot _do_ this.

This being — help someone. Anyone.

They tell him on the colony that the generator to the hospital has gone out. He asks where there’s another and they tell him the school. But when he removes the generator from the school and brings it to the hospital, they aren’t happy. Now there’s no generator for the school, they say. And what will we do if the storm comes again, knocks out power there?

Just leave, they say. We’ll handle this ourselves.

Just go, they tell him. You’ve caused enough trouble as it is.

Don’t come back, they shout, and Locus steps onto A’rynasea and leaves the colony behind.

 _This_ , he thinks, _is going to be tougher than I thought._

 

* * *

 

The colony was too big, he realizes. He’s not ready for something like this. At its start, redemption is a zero-sum game. You begin at square one, and you get nothing. And then you get nothing. _And then you get nothing._ He’s lived through war, through conflict and famine and intimate, close-quartered betrayal.

But this is the most difficult thing he has ever done.

So he decides to start small.

He floats for weeks in space, his radio tuned to pick up any distress signal he can find. Sometimes he stops onto a planet, docks and replenishes his supplies. He hasn’t willingly taken his helmet off in front of someone who isn’t Felix in _years_. Not since Siris was around. Not since they had fooled themselves into thinking they were the good guys.

He has no hang ups with that, now. He knows exactly what he is.

What he wants to _be_ is harder to grasp. So Locus buys rations and an MP3 player and sits in his ship listening to music from home, waiting for trouble to fall into his lap.

It takes about a month of this before he finds a little ship floating in space, low on fuel, struggling to make contact.

He requests permission to dock alongside them, but they fearfully reject him. He suspects they’ve been boarded, robbed probably. Or worse. It takes a day of negotiations, of careful promises and getting to know one another.

The boy on the radio’s name is Carlos, and this ship is supposed to be going home, to his colony. It takes hours to figure this out. Locus is reminded of stories about creatures who take your name, and then your soul.

“ _What’s_ your _name?_ ” Carlos finally asks, as the ship prepares to receive him.

Locus opens his mouth to answer, helmet in hand. He almost says it, but he doesn’t think Carlos is older than fourteen, maybe fifteen.

So he says, “Sam. My name is Sam.”

Carlos laughs over the radio. “ _That’s my dad’s name._ ”

“Is your father alive?”

“ _Yeah, he’s back home on the colony._ ”

Locus nods. “Give me five minutes. I promise I’ll get you back to him.”

He boards the little transport, full of Carlos’ extended family, trying to make their way back from a neighboring planet. Lopez fixes their navigation controls, refuels their ship, and teaches Carlos how to do some basic repairs on his own.

“Thank you,” Carlos says, and extends a hand in gratitude. He carries himself like an adult, not the teen he should be allowed to be. “We owe you.”

“Just return home safely,” Locus says, and shakes the boy’s hand.

 

* * *

 

And that’s how you start, he figures. One little ship at a time. Locus moves from system to system. He eats rations and listens to music. He lays on the cramped, ancient cot on the drilling ship and it’s the most comfortable place he’s slept in years. He hates it. He sleeps sitting up in the chair in the cockpit of the ship, for the most part, or on the floor by the console.

He helps little ships and then big ships and then bigger ships. He stops on small colonies and is given food and a place to rest in return for his aid.

There’s one that’s been in the dark for weeks and after Locus gets their power on again, they throw a party. He drinks beer for the first time in years. A woman comes over and asks to see his room.

“I don’t have one,” he says (slurs).

“It’s fine,” she says coolly. “You can see mine.”

(Distantly he remembers — he and Felix did this. Once. Helped a colony before they destroyed it. Locus let Felix handle the adoring fans. He let Felix takes girls back to the ship, or stroke the cheeks of handsome young men. He dealt with the money, he managed their time table.

He pulled the trigger. And then Felix would be there to pull it again.)

But this — adoration for something he’s _really_ done — this is new. It isn’t that affection is a stranger, or sex is unwelcome, or touch and the little soft sighs of an appreciative body don’t _move_ him.

It’s simply...different.

He’s used to waking up in the morning knowing he has to set it all on fire.

So it’s strange knowing he only has to wake up and say goodbye.

 

* * *

 

He gets a distress call from a colony that their generator has been stolen. Not the generator for any particular building, but the generator for their _entire_ colony. The generator that keeps their life support system from failing. The generator that keeps them from being bombarded with harmful gamma rays. The generator that keeps them alive.

Locus lands and the place is a ghost town. He wanders from prefab to prefab, opening doors and finding entire families dead.

Only the hospital is still active, but barely. When he gets inside he finds the remaining staff huddled on the fifth floor, doing what they can to keep the last few patients alive. A single doctor looks at him and he sees — violet, for a moment — that she is dying. Her lips are the color of bruises, her skin sallow and hands trembling.

“They took it,” she says, while she tries to do chest compressions on a man that Locus realizes is another doctor. “We thought someone would come with a new one.

“We’re just surviving, now.”

Locus takes her hands in his. The man on the table is dead. This woman is the last of her kind. She doesn’t have enough strength left to make it to his ship, and no one has time for him to save him all. The thought sinks in his gut like a stone and he takes her and carries her to an empty bed.

“Can I see your face?” she asks. “Just...for a minute. Just a _second_ ,” she pleads.

Locus nods. He removes his helmet, steeling himself against the stagnant air of the colony. She reaches up and cups his cheek.

“They were blue,” she says. “And they were red. But not,” she adds, “red and blue. There’s—” She coughs and blood trickles out of the corner of her mouth. “There is a _difference_ ,” she whispers.

Locus waits until she’s died to put his helmet on, the rush of recycled, mechanically clean air making him dizzy. He hears a few people call out, but walking away from that sort of thing is just another one of his skills. He can’t help them, and he knows in a few hours, everyone will be dead.

He gets back to his ship and places an anonymous call with the UNSC, after his ship rushes past their symbol emblazoned on the side of the hospital.

“You should take better care of your things,” he says, hanging up on the officer who begins to demand his name and his credentials.

 

* * *

 

And he could give up, after that. He could crash his ship into a mountainside and go back to doing what he used to be very good at. Because when you don’t _care_ , when the reward is distant and direct deposit, the dead people don’t bother you so much. The sort of earth shattering notion that people will no longer _exist_ because of things you did just doesn’t touch a nerve.

The idea that they will _still_ stop living, that they will _still_ die after you’ve done everything you can to help them is one thing. And it hurts. It hurts when he tries to save another transport ship not long after, but it is beyond rescue. The captain thanks him for everything over the radio and lets the thing crash through some planet’s atmosphere and burn up on entry.

The idea that you were too late, that you wanted to help and you failed — that’s a brand new creature to grapple with. It snarls in the night, makes camp in his chest and threatens to eat him from the inside out.

He was too _late_ and they died. He wasn’t quick enough, and they _died._

He failed.

And they died.

The aftermath used to be an afterthought.

When you’re trying to do the right thing, you have to stand by and _watch_ when it all goes to hell.

You must play witness to your failure.

It is so much harder to be _good_ , he realizes, than it ever was to be a monster.

 

* * *

 

He didn’t see Agent Washington’s face on Chorus, but here on the ship, the man bleeding out on the floor, Locus takes off the freelancer’s helmet and sees what he thought he might.

Not young, but still — _too_ young. Too young to be as damaged as he is. Washington gasps for air and Locus knows if they don’t get to the hospital, he will suffer more than just blood loss.

He takes off his own helmet, and Washington’s mouth gapes like a fish up at him. His bloody hand lunges forward, grabs the chestplate of Locus’ armor and drags him down.

He tries to speak, but it’s just a painful gurgling noise.

“No more,” Locus says.

Wash shakes his head, spits out a thick glob of blood.

“ _Name,_ ” he says.

Locus blinks down at him.

(There are creatures that learn your name, and then they take your soul.)

“Sam,” he says.

Wash nods. Blood streams out of his mouth. Locus keeps pressure on the wound.

Wash chokes out, “ _David_.”

And then he loses consciousness.

 

* * *

 

The aftermath used to be an afterthought.

But now he stands by as witness to his actions.

Good.

Bad.

Whatever they may be.

He leaves a message for Grif, knowing he may never get it. Grif’s a strange soldier, a clever man, a tired soul. The Reds and Blues _subsist_ on pushing themselves to the brink, primed for it from the very start. Locus gives the old cot on his ship another chance, closes his eyes, and thinks about the color spectrum.

Music he hasn’t heard in years fills the cabin, and he is twelve, making tamales with his grandmother, while his mother toes off her shoes after a long shift at the hospital.

“Are you helping, _mijo_?” she asks, and he nods. “You’re getting better.”

His grandmother smiles and puts a hand behind his head. “Lots and _lots_ of practice, hm?”

In his memory, he smiles.

In his bed, he smiles.

A’rynasea sails between stars, and Locus listens to songs from home.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr @ weatheredlaw


End file.
